Michael Johnson arrested in Phylicia Barnes murder

Phylicia Barnes went missing after visiting Baltimore. She was later found dead. (Photo: Baltimore Police)

BALTIMORE (AP) - Baltimore police said they have arrested a man in the death of a North Carolina teenager whose body was found in a river after she vanished in 2010 while visiting relatives in the area.

A man he identified as Michael Johnson has been arrested in the death of 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes, of Monroe, N.C., police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Associated Press early Thursday.

He has been charged with first degree murder.

Guglielmi said prosecutors would release more information later Thursday on the arrest.

Barnes was visiting her older half-siblings in Baltimore when she disappeared Dec. 28, 2010.

Workers at the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River found her body the following April in northeast Maryland. Medical examiners later ruled the death a homicide.

Soon after the teen vanished, Baltimore police alerted local media saying her disappearance was unusual because she had no history of disputes with her family or trouble with the law.

Police called it one of the strangest and most vexing missing persons cases they had investigated.

At one point, Guglielmi described it as "Baltimore's Natalee Holloway case," referring to the Alabama teen who disappeared during a trip to Aruba.